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Stoke City of England new arrival, Josh Maja has received a charge to build on his fitness, in order to do much better than he did in scoring during his debut for The Potters in the fourth round of the English FA Cup on Saturday.
Maja showed how much he understands English football, as the former Sunderland and Fulham star, who is on loan from Girondins-Bordeaux of France got one of Stoke’s goals in their 2-0 win over Wigan Athletic.
Megasportsarena.com reports that the goal came less than a week after Stoke completed their temporary acquisition of Maja on transfer deadline day, as they got him on loan from Bordeaux for the remainder of this season.
It took him just 15 minutes to signal his intents with the former club of Seyi George Olofinjana Peter Osaze Odemwingie, Victor Moses, Shola Ameobi and John Mikel Obi, as he made the most of a slip to fire home from 14 yards out.
In the wake of his heroics, Maja has received accolades from Stoke’s coach, Michael O’Neil, who admitted that the striker was not in his original plan for the game, as he has not fully settled down with The Potters’ squad.
The gaffer added that Maja was not initially considered to face The Latics, considering that the Sunderland academy product had logged only 45 minutes in all competitions this season before his return to England.
He went on to declare that Maja now needs to work harder off the field in order to regain full match fitness, having missed the first four months of the current campaign due to a back injury, which limited his appearances with Bordeaux to the minimal and accounted in part for his return to England.
O’Neill stated: “Josh took his goal extremely well and I think he linked the play up well. He’s not played a lot of football in the first half of the season so he’ll benefit from the 70-odd minutes he had.
“That’s what he needs. For him to show what he showed was a real positive but we still have to build his fitness and get him as many minutes as we can. He’ll improve with that as well.”
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